France's most notorious serial killer has claimed that he murdered at least one victim on the orders of highly placed personalities in Toulouse because of a blackmail threat linked to sadomasochistic orgies involving politicians, judges and police.

Dominique Baudis, the city's former mayor and current head of the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, an independent broadcasting watchdog, said through a lawyer yesterday that he was among four people named by the murderer, Patrice Alègre, who is serving a life sentence for five killings, involving extreme cruelty, and six rapes.

Mr Baudis's lawyer, Francis Szpiner, dismissed Alègre's claim that the former mayor took part in orgies and "was involved in the organisation of a murder".

But his client, a former television presenter and newsreader, wanted to be interrogated so that he could "regain his honour", claiming that he was a victim of a political conspiracy.

A pro-Palestinian "fly-in" to Tel Aviv got off to a slow start on Sunday after Israel scrambled to block activists from boarding flights in Europe.

"Four activists have been detained after arriving on an El Al flight from Paris and are being questioned at (Tel Aviv) airport," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

An Interior Ministry spokeswoman said the Immigration Authority had on Wednesday given airlines the names of some 1,200 activists whose entrance to Israel would be barred. Israel made clear the airlines would have to shoulder the costs of sending any deported activists back to their port of origin.

Leehee Rothschild, a "Welcome to Palestine" activist, said that dozens of campaigners had since been informed by airlines that their tickets to Tel Aviv have been cancelled.

Organizers said some 1,200 Palestinian supporters throughout Europe had bought plane tickets to Israel and had planned to travel on to the occupied West Bank, an hour's drive from Tel Aviv, as part of a campaign called "Welcome to Palestine".

The aim of the so-called "flytilla", organizers said, was to help open an international school and a museum in Bethlehem. But Israel has denounced the activists as provocateurs and said it would deny entry to anyone who threatened public order.

Cartagena, Colombia - Colombian officials are reporting no injuries or damage from three small explosions as Western Hemisphere leaders arrived for a summit.

Two of the low-intensity blasts occurred in Cartagena where the summit is being held and one was close to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.

The explosions occurred as more than 30 presidents and prime ministers arrived for the sixth Summit of the Americans.

A senior military official says two bags of gunpowder exploded in a vacant lot about a quarter mile (400 meters) from Cartagena's bus station Friday evening. The official spoke only on condition he not be further identified.

Bogota security officials say the third explosive device was set off near a tree in a drainage ditch near the U.S. Embassy, which is heavily fortified.

Source: The Associated Press

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Labour Day-weekend trip to Manhattan last fall, which included coveted tickets to a New York Yankees game and a Broadway show, cost Canadian taxpayers at least $45,000, documents reveal.

Documents obtained under Access to Information reveal only some of the trip's cost. They include $34,633 for the use of the Challenger Jet and another $11,026 for the expenses of four staffers who joined the prime minister during the private family trip.

However, government officials have declined to provide CBC News with other costs linked to the trip last September, such as expenses incurred by the prime minister, two more aides and a defence attaché who took part in the three-day excursion.

Costs were not provided related to the RCMP officers who accompanied the prime minister on this personal trip. RCMP officials say the documents detailing those expenses can't be released because they contain sensitive information that could affect security and the conduct of international affairs. RCMP are required to accompany Harper for security reasons even on personal travels.

Cartagena, Colombia -- The U.S. military says five service members supporting the Secret Service in advance of President Barack Obama's visit may have been involved in inappropriate conduct and have been confined to quarters. Obama is in Colombia for a Summit of the Americas.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the incident with the military personnel stems from the same episode involving about a dozen members of the Secret Service who were called back to the U.S. for an investigation into possible misconduct.

Carney referred questions about the episode, which includes allegations that U.S. personnel procured prostitutes, to the Secret Service and to the military.

Carney said the president retains confidence in the Secret Service and said the incidents under investigation, which preceded Obama's arrival, had no impact on presidential security.

Source: The Associated Press

A cyber security bill moving swiftly through Congress would give government intelligence agencies broad powers to work with private companies to share information about Internet users. While some critics are beginning to organize online against the legislation, defense contractors, many already working with the National Security Agency on related data-mining projects, are lobbying to press forward. Like many bad policy ideas, entrenched government contractors seem to be using taxpayer money to lobby for even more power and profit.

The proposal, H.R.3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, introduced by Congressmen Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), provides companies and the government "free rein to bypass existing laws in order to monitor communications, filter content, or potentially even shut down access to online services for 'cybersecurity purposes.'" Though the bill has been compared to SOPA given its potential to smother free speech on the Internet, the ill-fated copyright legislation that inspired an intense lobbying battle earlier this year, much of the tech community has has joined with copyright interests to support CISPA.

Sanna, Yemen - A U.S. drone strike killed seven suspected al-Qaida members believed to be heading toward a restive province where Yemeni forces have been intensely battling the terror group, Yemeni officials said.

The unmanned U.S. drone targeted a vehicle in the province of Bayda, south of the capital of Sanaa, killing the seven people inside on the spot, according to two Yemeni military officials.

A statement from the Ministry of Defense said only that a jet fired a missile at a vehicle carrying al-Qaida members, destroying it and the people inside. The statement did not clarify whether the strike was American or Yemeni. The discrepancy could not be immediately clarified.

One of the Yemeni officials said the militants were heading to Abyan province where government forces are engaged in ongoing clashes with militants. Yemeni officials said more than 200 militants have been killed in fighting in the province over the last week, as Yemen tries to bring the restive area back under its control.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials, but Washington has carried out deadly airstrikes in Yemen in the past. Last year, an American drone strike killed U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and a second American, Samir Khan, an al-Qaida propagandist.

A Palestinian activist said Saturday that a number of international airlines canceled flights for at least 100 people scheduled to arrive in Israel's main airport for a mass fly-in of pro-Palestinian activists, while Israel said those activists who manage to make it to the airport would be deported.

Campaign organizer Amira Musallam said activists from around the world notified her by email that Lufthansa, Jet2.com and Air France canceled their flight reservations.

EasyJet also announced it would refuse to fly passengers which Israel has marked on a no-entry list. Airline spokeswoman Anna Knowles said only a small number of passengers were affected.

Israeli television reported most airlines would not fly activists to Israel and only a trickle would arrive, though Musallam, the Palestinian organizer, said she still expects hundreds of activists to arrive beginning Saturday evening and continuing through Sunday.

The "Welcome to Palestine" project seeks to raise attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas.

Visitors can only reach the West Bank through Israeli-controlled land crossings or Israeli airports. At any given time, hundreds of foreigners are in the West Bank, including activists, aid workers, volunteers, tourists and religious pilgrims. Israel limits entry through its border crossing to the Gaza Strip to foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers only.

Travelers who wish to visit the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank often report being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours, by Israeli border authorities - unless they fib about their intended destination.

Israel is nervous about a large influx of pro-Palestinian activists, following a series of deadly run-ins with such activists in recent years.

The UN security council has voted unanimously to send to 30 military observers to Syria to monitor the country's fragile ceasefire.

Russia and China joined the other 13 security council members and voted in favour of the draft resolution on Saturday. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, made it clear Moscow would only support limited action from the UN.

"Out of respect for the sovereignty of Syria we have cautioned against destructive attempts at external interference or imposing any kind of illusory fixes," he said.

Sources at the UN said that the observers were poised to leave for Syria in the next couple of days.

Oil smuggling is embedded into the social, political and economic fabric of Greece, with annual revenues generated from illegal fuel smuggling reaching €3 billion euros as of 2008, and some sources say that although Greece imports up to 99 percent of its fuel needs, it still manages to export more than it imports.

Greece thrives on its shipping industry and one of its main contraband markets is petroleum. Greek regulations have shipping oil priced at one-third the price of automotive and home heating oil. In response, smugglers transform low-cost "shipping oil" into higher-priced home and automotive oil, generating huge profits. The practice requires a vast criminal infrastructure including illegal depots near ports and major cities for the storage of the shipping oil, which is adulterated and resold as home and automotive oil.

An estimated 20 percent of fuel oil sold in the Greek market comes from illegal trade. Gas stations in Greece are said to offer fuel that is a more lucrative blend of legally purchased fuel and black market fuel, allowing retailers to realize higher profits and avoid excise duties.

Though Greece shows a mathematically impossible volume of petroleum exports to neighboring countries, the bills of laden do not add up, with oil tankers departing for their expressed destinations but then turning around and rerouting the ships back home for illegal sale on the domestic market.